Python

Python - a popular general-purpose high-level user-friendly programming language. It is widely used for scientific programming and developing web and desktop applications.

Distributions

• Anaconda Python - Anaconda Python is a completely free enterprise-ready Python distribution for large-scale data processing, predictive analytics, and scientific computing. (Windows/Linux/Mac)
• Enthought Python - The Enthought Python Distribution provides scientists with a comprehensive set of tools to perform rigorous data analysis and visualization. (Windows/Linux/Mac)

Advantages

• Free
• Has a huge number of packages for any need
• Has a great community of programmers to find answers to all of your questions
• Is used outside of academia a lot (easy to find a Python developer job)
• Great GUI toolkits
• Great OOP support

Disadvantages

• Need to import Math packages
• Occasionally, some packages don't work well together

Code editors / IDEs

• Sublime Text 2 - smart, powerful, easy to learn, and popular text editor for code. Add SublimeLinter for automatic code style checking
• Spyder - Spyder is the Scientific PYthon Development EnviRonment

Tutorials

• Official tutorial
• Interactive tutorial in the browser
• Code Like a Pythonista: Idiomatic Python
• Python Scientific Lecture Notes